To repeat what I said in the SICP thread from a couple of days ago:
Folks, you don't need proprietary software or an iThing to get help with SICP. Hop on #scheme on freenode and check out http://schemers.org/ for resources.
Get yourself a good Scheme implementation like GNU Guile or Racket and get hacking.
I do love IRC, but what Understudy gives you is a one-to-one relationship with another person who cares.
It means that Thursday evening, when you're tired, it's easier to pick yourself up and work, because doing so gets you a _better_conversation_ on Saturday. I'm a cellist - this comes from private music lessons.
You said the (exact) same thing in the thread this blog post spun out from, and I didn't bother to challenge it, but I will now.
You're not being fair to IRC. IRC can just as easily give you a one-to-one relationship with another person who cares. Private messages exist, among other means. Moreover, the experience can be completely asynchronous. You don't have to both be available to make progress.
The main benefit of something like Understudy is to mediate the introduction of users to mentors. There is something to gain from a sustained conversation with the same mentor, but Understudy can make no more guarantees about the availability of your mentor than IRC can. Furthermore, that both the mentor and the mentee have to pay $5 if they're using the app more than two hours a month demolishes the potential userbase, not to mention that you also need an iOS device. IRC is multi-platform, free, and already attracts the sort of individuals that would be capable and willing to mentor users in something like SICP.
> Moreover, the experience can be completely asynchronous. You don't have to both be available to make progress.
Studying SICP (or anything) can involve different "modes":
Reading and doing exercises will often be solitary. Q&A could definitely be asynchronous (IRC works great for that!). But we're talking about explaining what you've learned; only in synchronous conversation will you get the back-and-forth "wait what? How's that work?"
A hard part of learning is figuring out exactly what you don't know; conversation is remarkably effective at elucidating that. Where do you feel uncomfortable while speaking? Where does your partner look especially confused or skeptical? The human connection gives you expression, body language, tone of voice, etc. in a quick feedback loop.
(disclaimer: not involved in creating Understudy, but I'm a happy user!)
> only in synchronous conversation will you get the back-and-forth "wait what? How's that work?"
There is something to be gained from synchronous conversation, but what you've listed can be done asynchronously.
In either case, my point was IRC doesn't have to always be synchronous. When you're both available, the conversation can be synchronous.
I agree that there is a huge benefit from having a synchronous, spoken conversation, but my reply was contesting that "Understudy gives you is a one-to-one relationship with another person who cares" in contrast to IRC. IRC can do exactly that, so what sells Understudy is certainly something different.
It seems to that the term covers the hardware associated with iOS and doesn't imply anything one way or another about the company which manufactures it.
It is not as if there is just one "iPhone" and one "iPod" and one "iPad". There are diverse models of each and little point in being pedantic over all the retinas and 2' and 3's and 4's and GS's and plain old S's and mini's and nano's when the important point is that one cluster of them is required to use the product.
It succinctly captures the entire category of "small personal electronic device from Apple" including all present and plausible future product lines. Unlike M$, it has both derogatory and non-derogatory intonations and connotations.
The idea is solid, but the technology to get there is crap. People who have used a wacom or ntrig based tablet can tell you drawing and writing with anything else is, to put it bluntly, complete shit. Drawing and writing on capacitive screens is a horrible experience; No palm rejection, no pressure sensitivity, and accuracy is problematic.
There is a reason why note takers, artists and others are pursuing options for tablets and PC's that have digitizer technology baked in. Look at Crabfu, Gabe of penny arcade and the hundreds of iPad vs. Galaxy Note vs Surface Pro youtube videos. The Surface Pro is a very compelling device if you strip away the emotional baggage related to MSFT.
This is neither art nor note taking, it's communication. :-) It's visual anchoring and gesturing - after the call's over you don't end up looking back at what you did almost at all.
We didn't know if the tech would work, but we have enough beta testers at this point that I'm pretty sure that it does.
Here's a video of a couple people talking some SICP.
The video is great! One, Is it possible for a user to "save" the session? After all, it may be some time before they get back together. Two, the quality of written aspect, which is central to the "communication" idea is very poor in comparison to what I can achieve on my Galaxy Note 3 with wacom digitizer. I am a lefty with very small handwriting and its still very legible on the GN3... I can't wait to get a bigger tablet with the digitizer baked in.
I think the idea could be useful for much more than SICP, however the ability to save and actually read what you have written would be killer features.
> One, Is it possible for a user to "save" the session?
Yup! Old sessions are basically saved as documents.
> Two, the quality of written aspect, which is central to the "communication" idea is very poor in comparison to what I can achieve on my Galaxy Note 3 with wacom digitizer.
You didn't quite state the question there. :-) If things work out, we'll definitely want to do Android too.
> I think the idea could be useful for much more than SICP, however the ability to save and actually read what you have written would be killer features.
Hope so! We're starting with SICP and Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain[1], but it's really easy for us to add other courses. We really have something like Coursera in mind.
I think this is a great point, one of the reasons that tablet and smartphone software is doing well is because the standards for the web and native software is so astonishingly low. But when it comes down to it, we already have better interfaces for computer interaction than using our fingers.
I can see the reasoning behind this product though, the iPad has a huge base of customers, and there aren't enough Surface Pro users out there.
"We find that Understudy is much more natural than Skype for collaboration (as opposed to for idle chatting). The whiteboard canvas lets you gesture and make visual references, and you can attach PDFs or images."
This is a false analogy. Skype isn't limited to idle chatting and you can also attach PDFs or images into a skype chat. And you can also screen share on Skype so any paint program would double as a whiteboard.
I suspect the use case for Understudy is much better served with Understudy than Skype, but the way the comparison is presented on the site doesn't really help, and may be interpreted as completely disingenuous.
I'm not sure I'm convinced of the payment model...
Charging for human interaction seems like a losing proposition... What's to stop a competitor from coming along, doing the same thing, but removing the cost?
And what does the cost represent? Server drain? use of the drawing platform? there's gotta be a better business model out there... maybe you can integrate with amazon and make this a more general read-with-friends kind of thing and sell the reading pattern data (that seems like it would be valuable to companies like amazon or barnes & noble)...?
This looks great and I would love to use it for both SICP and learning how to draw. I don't mind paying for online services like these. However, I don't have an iPad, but I do have an iphone and an MBA. Where does that leave me and all the other potential customers like me?
Sorry about that! The thing is, a tablet is very well suited to the whiteboard, and we find that the whiteboard _really_ helps for this kind of working collaboration.
It makes it very natural to gesture and discuss visually.
Understudy works in proportion to how good of a connection it fosters. You really want the tool to vanish, and to forget that you're not really in the same room. For non-work stuff, like talking to my parents, the phone does decently at that for me, but for trying to collaborate videochat is not very effective, in my experience.
Understudy's whiteboard/videochat does do it for me.
(As far as Android vs iPad – well, have to start somewhere! Also, I worked at Apple for 7 years, so it's definitely the environment where I'm quickest.)
I tried to tutor my niece in math using Google Hangouts and various whiteboard apps, but drawing with the mouse / trackpad was pretty difficult. Now we use Understudy and it works great, if I do say so myself.
Well, I'd say the central theme is human connection, and then the question is what you need to make that work.
All I can say is that the iPad's screen seems to be over the hump for this! We have beta testers, and they honestly seem to be doing great. You can see a few tweets they've made at https://twitter.com/understudyapp . You might also be interested in this video of it in use - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrdjKvka558 . If you look at it _statically_, it looks bad, but when you see it in motion, you see that it's effectively gesture.
You're trying to visually communicate and gesture, not create an artifact to refer back to. My handwriting on real physical whiteboards is terrible, but they still work.
It would be interesting to try on an MS Surface. To literally answer your question, (1) there are a lot more iPads out there than Surfaces, (2) I worked at Apple for 7.5 years, on the Cocoa Frameworks for most of it, and I'm very productive in this environment.
Agreed on the count of potential customers with iPads and productivity within the platform you know. I, for one, wish you all the best and I think its a great idea to be sure. I said this elsewhere, I think this could be super useful for a variety of disciplines, but the underlying technology has to be right. Heres to hoping Apple releases a tablet like the Surface Pro!
I am the other guy working on Understudy. The iPad has been the best platform for Understudy so far, but I still have my fingers crossed that Apple builds a better touch screen into their next iPad. Who should I pray to for that wish?
They don't need to build a better touch screen... they just need to add wacom or ntrig digitizer layer with a stylus. Think: Macbook Air with a flip or detachable screen and wacom baked in. This would probably vaporize the iPad as the duality of fully tablet and fully laptop negates the need for both. I like my MBP, but I am seriously considering a Surface Pro so I can get the tablet form factor and a full PC in one. The added bonus is handwritten notes and practicing digital art which used to require a Cintiq or another peripheral device.
This is pretty timely, I tried and failed to get into Chapter 2 of SICP just a few months ago and eventually got discouraged and ran out of steam. I signed up for this, maybe it'll help keep me accountable and on track.
Folks, you don't need proprietary software or an iThing to get help with SICP. Hop on #scheme on freenode and check out http://schemers.org/ for resources.
Get yourself a good Scheme implementation like GNU Guile or Racket and get hacking.